Our 'Greatest Hope' Is Not in Elected Officials but Corporations, Says T.D. Jakes

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(The Christian Post)

In
this file photo, Bishop T.D. Jakes of The Potter's House speaks at a
pastors conference in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 10, 2008. Jakes will be
hosting his first international MegaFest in Johannesburg, South Africa,
on Oct. 11-12.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Megachurch pastor Bishop T.D.
Jakes of The Potter's House in Dallas, Texas, charged Wednesday that
it's corporations and not elected officials that represent "the greatest
hope" in effecting change and development in underserved communities
across America. He said, however, that they need to "add a moral
component to money" to make it happen.

"We need corporations to
add a moral component to money," said Jakes, to a group of pastors and
Christian leaders at the Reconciled Church Summit on Wednesday. The
movement was launched in response to national protests against the
killings by police of black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York, by
Bishop Harry Jackson, senior pastor of Hope Christian Church in
Beltsville, Maryland, televangelist James Robison, and Jakes in January.

"Starbucks
is trying to do it. … If we can tie morality to money, to a purpose, to
resources, we can really begin to change things. I don't really believe
that the greatest hope is in the elected officials. I believe it is in
the corporations and the business opportunities coming together," he
continued.Jakes, who's also a respected businessman, will host
what is billed as America's largest inspirational festival, MegaFest
from Aug. 20–22, and understands how economic stimulation can affect
communities. MegaFest 2013,
which attracted more than 75,000 attendees from 20 states and 31
countries, resulted in an estimated $41 million economic impact on the
downtown Dallas business district."I refuse to believe that it is
cheaper to outsource your business to foreign countries than it is to
clean up bad neighborhoods in our own city. It's got to be cheaper to
come back home. And the excuse that I hear from the private sector and
corporations is — there is too much drugs, there is too much crime,
there is too much violence. And I bought that for years until I saw them
move into Mexico surrounded by the cartels," explained the Dallas
preacher.

"I
thought: if you can survive the cartels, you can survive the ghetto. … I
need you to create opportunities where business people can bring people
like us into their settings to talk to them about what they are missing
about the community process. And again, it is an expensive loss not to
upgrade people and invest back into the community that you hope to
market your products to," added Jakes.Robison who sat with both
Jakes and Jackson on a panel discussing a range of factors affecting the
reconciliation of the American church agreed."I spend a
tremendous amount of my time with the upper class business leaders. The
free market thinkers who understand the principles essential to keep the
free market stable — and it's not corporate cronyism in bed with the
federal government," said Robison."That is as absolutely
repulsive as anything on the planet, but you are never going to overcome
poverty without prosperity. And you're never gonna have prosperity
without personal responsibility, a word that I think is an
entrepreneurial ability that God gives to individuals," he continued.Using
the Koch brothers as an example, Robison charged that government was
hampering the ability of big businesses to be productive."I am
meeting the people and seeing one side of the liberal world who think
the Koch brothers are [among] the meanest people on the planet. I got
news for you, they are not. I want to see them come to know Christ,
personally, if they don't. And I'm after them for Jesus. I want to tell
you something, they care, they want to spend everything they've got
because they would like to help you," said Robison."They want
honest people working for them. I know these business leaders, they
don't want to be in bed with government, they want to be set free to be
productive. But they also need that someone like me to tell them they've
got that personal responsibility to take their entrepreneurial skills
to young people that don't have a father like I did and give them hope
and show them a future," he continued."All of you, the very many
downtrodden and overlooked, you can't see the free market in the United
States as the problem or you will literally destroy the golden goose
that lays the golden egg that is central for your future," he said.Jakes further chimed in on pastors who think it's wrong to talk about money at the pulpit."It
is easy for pastors who pastor in bedroom communities with upper level
incomes to say you shouldn't talk about money in the pulpit. But if
you're gonna pastor underserved communities you absolutely must talk
about money. … And we have to talk about this, because the lack of
resources is the catalyst through which a lot of these crimes are
committed because people need to understand business," said Jakes."If
we are really going to be missionaries we can't just give people a
salvation card and brag about how many people we won to Jesus when
coming to Christ put them out of business. You have to provide alternate
resources for those people to have hope and translate those
opportunities into tangible results. And you have to do it from the
pulpit if you're are gonna get out there to where they are," he noted."In
our community the pulpit is the press. Our pulpit is the press, and
whether you want to believe it or not your politicians believe it
because they stop by the pulpit on the way to the polls. So you might as
well wake up to the fact that there are people who read the headlines
of the pastor's mouth. And for that person who has given their life to
Christ — and they are no longer in prostitution and they are no longer
selling drugs — you have to have a message of hope, and it has to be
practical to millennials and it has to have a business component in it,"
Jakes asserted."So as we critique each other about etiquette,
and you get down on ground level zero of actually working in these
communities rather than just passing out turkeys once a year, you will
find out that the Gospel causes people to have hope and have life. But
if we don't have a plan, they go right back to where they came from
because it's hard to be happy and joyous when you cannot feed your
children," he said.

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